Rather And Chung: The Right Combination To Revitalize Cbs News?

Dan & Connie:

A Future Together?

In May, Dan Rather and Connie Chung kissed and hugged when CBS announced they would team up as anchors of the "CBS Evening News."

But five months after the June debut of the "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather and Connie Chung," ratings show the audience has yet to embrace the pair.

"Television -- like most things in life -- is change," says Rather, the man who took over for Walter Cronkite in 1981. "The law of the television jungle is supposed to be: `You change, you lose.' And we went into this as a long-term decision. It's going to be a long march before we know whether it's going to work. And if it does work, it's going to be a long time before we reap whatever benefits there are."

Surprisingly, despite a brief but immediate ratings decline in the weeks after Chung's arrival and what has now become a dead heat with "NBC Nightly News" for second place, "Evening News" executive producer Erik Sorenson says, "To us, that's a victory."

CBS, says Sorenson, actually thought bringing Chung on might -- in the short run -- push the show from No. 2 in the ratings to No. 3.

That kind of logic is lost on Peter Jennings, anchor of ABC's top-rated "World News Tonight" broadcast.

"I think that's hogwash," says Jennings, though he agrees with those at CBS who say summer and sporting events typically play havoc with the ratings.

So the question remains: Why bring Chung on now, or, for that matter, at all?

Some people in the industry believe it's the beginning of the end of Dan Rather as anchorman.

Says a top executive at a competing network, "I think it is part of a long-term strategy which in its current phase will serve the purpose of legitimizing Connie Chung. She has obviously been designated as the long-term CBS anchor."

Sorenson says he has heard that kind of speculation and answers

this way:

"I think that network management here at CBS was looking at a couple of factors. They had Dan, who was turning the corner on 60 and was signing a new deal, and I think in some people's minds -- because you just think that 65 is the time that people should quit -- that he was going to think about quitting. Personally, I don't think he's ever going to quit."

Quitting, indeed, would seem to be out of the question for Rather, who turns 62 this year.

"Let the record show I said this with a smile," he says. "I'm not as good as I can be, and I'm not as good as I'm going to be. My best work is ahead of me."

But the question may be: What kind of work? Anchoring? Reporting? Both?

Right from the start, CBS, Rather and Chung have said that having a second anchor freed one of the network's hardest-charging reporters -- Dan Rather -- to go out into the field more often.

Rather, the managing editor of the broadcast, says he might not have been able to travel to Bosnia or cover the flood in the Midwest -- to cite just two examples -- had Chung not been taking care of anchor business in New York.

"Since Dan always liked going to the site [of a news event], it was always hard for Erik Sorenson and [CBS News President] Eric Ober to agree to allow him to go when he was doing it by himself," says Chung. "They didn't want to run the risk of him being in the wrong place. Now, if one of us goes -- which we do now -- we will never run that risk."

But whose idea was the double anchor?

"I can't believe this is Dan's idea," says the executive at CBS's competitor. "But I think he is smart enough to say, `I understand how the system works, and you people do what you want to do,' and at the same time he is not diminished, and his checks don't bounce."

"It was a decision that was made by the decision-makers," says Chung, 47. "I was brought in on the process very late."

"I was asked if I were willing to try it," says Rather, "and I said yes."

Rather, however, recently fueled speculation that he was unhappy with the new arrangement during a speech before the Radio and Television News Directors Association.

"We've all gone Hollywood," Rather told his audience, which was gathered in part to commemorate a stamp honoring TV patron saint Edward R. Murrow, Rather's CBS News hero.

"They've got us putting more and more fuzz and wuzz on the air ... so as to compete not with other news programs but with entertainment programs," Rather said at the time, concluding, "We all should be ashamed of what we have and have not done."

Rather's colleagues say they don't think he was speaking specifically about CBS but about the news business in general.

"I thought it was great," Chung says of the speech. "I really did. I thought he couldn't have said it better. He was raising a red flag, and I think he's right."

Sorenson agrees.

"I did not in any way take it personally," he says.

Rather comments that he has rarely been more "at peace" with himself since giving the speech. He adds, "A lot of people who write about the speech want to write about motive. ... Actually, I

wish they'd give a little more space to the speech itself and less to the speculation about motive."